BMX bicycling, street and vert or vertical bicycle trick riding commenced in about the early 1990's. Roller-pegs, affixed to bicycle axles, become a means by which bicycle tricks are facilitated.
The practice and application of “grinding” is common in both adolescents and adult street bicycle trick riding as seen at X-Games “Street” and vertical or “Vert” riding events and as witnessed at many city skate and bicycle parks on bicycles. For performing this stunt, typically a cylindrical metal tube peg is secured to the bicycle axles extending outward laterally about four inches. With the bicycle in motion, the rider steers the bicycle so as to ride the pegs onto various surface edges. After traversing the length of the selected surface the rider steers the bicycle back to another rideable surface.
The act of grinding using metal pegs with a bicycle has been around since about 1993. Since then there have been attempts to create a rolling peg, These relied on internal steel bearings, mechanical locks, were poorly constructed, very heavy and proved unacceptable to the stunt riding public. Other current peg designs do not offer the choice of a rolling peg surface. Current popular designs are fixed pegs that slide along and/or grind against the surface the peg is applied to. This grinding action limits both speed and distance, while contributing to tremendous wear on both the peg and surface the peg is grinding on. Typically, such pegs have been constructed of mild steel or metal alloys, enabling them to endure much of the imposed wear forces. The surfaces used for grinding very often are not covered by metal and the act of grinding imposes significant damage to these surfaces. The outer most edge of metal tube pegs wear and sharpen thus creating a very dangerous condition from which many riders sustain lacerating or puncture hole (cookie cutter like) injuries. Bicycle roller-pegs are known in the prior art as seen in the following patents: U.S. Pat. No. 625,368 to Thompson; U.S. Pat. No. 3,484,829 to Erickson; U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,918 to Peabody et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,884,983 to Wu; U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,897 to Hsieh et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,161,859 to Cheng; U.S. Pat. No. 6,199,887 to Lee; U.S. Pat. No. 6,247,761 to Lin; U.S. Pat. No. 6,485,044 to Blake.
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